If you are here, you want to make sense of the world's intricacies like I do.

Go ahead, intimidate.

Okay, so maybe I stole the slogan from monginis. But the point is this – I have lived much of my life being lesser than who I am, because I thought my real self would scare people into thinking I’m some brilliant yet antisocial person.

You can go ahead and tell me that if I like myself then what people think should not matter. Yeah in theory and to make sure that when you are alone with yourself, you don’t hate your own company. But the truth is, I set store by social desirability as well. Much of what I do, requires an audience, and ergo, so does my personality.

Believe me its much easier going to an art gallery with people who would take guesses along with you about what an artwork means, rather than go alone. Of course, if you don’t have people like these, you’d rather go alone. But to arrive at this understanding, you need to meet and know a handful of people who do get you, and thankfully, I finally have.

The fact that these people are there in my life makes me secure enough to go ahead and be myself in front of people who don’t get me, or get intimidated by me. I no longer have to make myself less than I am, in order to make these people stay. Just like I’ve given up on petite and pretty shoes that don’t fit my big feet.

What I find limiting is not that these people don’t have what I do, but that they have not accessed it due too societal , parental or their own self imposed limitations. The last is perhaps the worst because people want to be average, normal or like everyone else and they stop themselves from being different. Why , I ask? Yes you will lose a few friends. But it’s much better to share a starry night in silence with someone who gets you, rather than be forced into the limited confines of a noisy disco.

The other extreme is people telling me what’s wrong with me (though I don’t remember asking them), and then telling me how I’m too straight forward or serious. I want to tell them how they were straightforward enough giving me advice and flaws I did not want to hear. Also, that they are serious about a sport or a kind of music that I’m not, and never held it against them but just took that as a part of their personality.

But I don’t. I just continue showing interest and seriousness in whatever I like and hope that they see that that’s who I am and I’ve given up smaller shoes. If they don’t, too bad, but that only means that those who matter to me accept me for who I am.

So yes, I don’t have a very great at fashion sense, I do think helping the economy by buying local is more important than brands, I give the product the advantage rather than who produced it, I don’t restrict myself to genres, have multiple hobbies, want to help ‘undesirable’ people and have high standards that I struggle to meet and rebuke myself if I don’t. If you find that intimidating, good. It will tell you that you have refused yourself some growth, which needs to change.

And if you wish to leave, do so. My liking for myself is more important than your boxed liking of me.